SOA Battle Day 2010 – An alternative approach

As The Other Partizan draws closer, and the time for putting in my order for my 6mm Republican Romans approaches, I have a sudden urge for a reality check (maybe the continued daily victory of not pre-ordering the new Space Hulk is having other effects…)

You see, the trouble is that, as always, my annual painting output is far exceeded by my ambition. This year I have painted a couple of Uncharted Seas fleets and 3/4 of a Command Horizon army -  yet I have bought in addition to this a 28mm WW1 German Army, a 1/600th Scale British Cold War battlegroup and over 100 aircraft for a Battle of Britain game – all these lie patiently in they boxes and jiffy bags, awaiting to see the light of day.

And I haven’t even mentioned the 3 other 6mm armies that are still awaiting painting (amongst the many other items of unpainted lead).

Adding 2 more 6mm armies to this is just ridiculous isn’t it?

However, all may not be lost, as I have just been sent the new Battleground Historical Warfare game from Your Move Games to review.  This is the historical version of YMG’s fantastic Battleground Fantasy Warfare game, which has the interesting distinction of being an element based miniature wargame, which doesn’t use miniatures.

BGHW follows the same path – each unit consists of a card containing a top-down piece of artwork, and is completed by a set of unit stats, an order box and a health track. They are designed to be used in conjunction with a dry-wipe pen which records various information straight on the card.

The initial rule set has gone through several ‘tweaks’ as new units have been introduced in the fantasy game, and now this latest historical version really does look very impressive.

And of course, what makes it more relevant to this thread is the fact that this new release covers the Second Punic War, so all the units that I require for the SOA Battle Day are in the game – what is more, the game even includes a ready made scenario for Zama (and it’s huge…the ’standard’ game of BGHW is for armies of about 2000 points. The epic Zama scenario is 7000+ points a side)

So, does this game suddenly provide me with a get-out-of-jail plan for my over ambitious dreams?

Maybe – though I think I shall have to drop Richard Lockwood a line to check if he would be happy with it.

Meeples & Miniatures – Episode 51

Download Episode 51

Welcome to a short (but hopefully sweet!) edition of the Meeples & Miniatures Podcast.

In this show, I simply concentrate on one subject – the Society of Ancients.

I chat about the aims and objectives of the Society with Richard Lockwood, and I then go on to review Slingshot, the SoA’s publication for members.

I hope you enjoy the show.

SOA Battle Day 2010 – Of Time, Space…and Practicallity

As I’ve put together the two armies for Zama, there is one thing that I can’t get away from – this battle is potentially big, really big.

We are looking at 2700+ Infantry, 200+ Cavalry and 18 Elephants – Even in 6mm, this is going to look a very impressive sight.

But are things getting out of hand? Time for a sanity check…

Size of the game

Lets take a look at the points values. I’ve roughly worked out the points value of each army:

• Romans – 1131
• Carthaginians – 1134

Surprisingly similar, but very large  – especially considering that the Impetus rules are designed to work with armies of between 300 – 500 points. Will the system even work with armies that are so big?

Table size

Playing Impetus in 6mm means that you use 1/4 sized based from the 28mm equivalent…which should mean that you can play the game on a 4′ x 2′ board.

Obviously with a game this size, you need a much bigger table – for example, the Carthaginian line is potentialy something like 17 base widths wide – that’s just over a meter…and you need room for the cavalry to operate on both flanks. An 8′ x 4′ table is not an excessive space as far as wargames go, but having this filled with 6mm figures does put some perspective on the size of the battle.

Painting

OK, here’s where it gets difficult. Anyone who reads this blog will know that I am not the quickest painter in the world – far from it. I can achieve some good results when pushed, but I do struggle to stay focused on projects. The sheer size of the forces required would be challenging, even for a quick painter, never mind someone like me.

So what do I do?

I’m the first to admit that I’m a bit of a dreamer, and I get very enthusiastic about new projects. The idea of a huge battle of Zama is, I still think, a great one. Seeing the table would certainly give an appreciation of the sheer scale of the battle. However, I think if I move forward based on the inital plans, the project may very well be doomed for failure.

So, especially considering my concerns with game size, I think a sensible option would be to start by building the armies at half size – so each unit would effectively represent double the amount of troops that it should normally.

Though it will still produce a couple of large armies (26 bases for the Romans and 31 for the Carthaginians) these are certainly much more managable within the confines of ’standard’ Impetus game play.

Obviously, the added bonus of this approach is that I can complete 2 armies which can be used as they stand, and then still go and produce the larger armies if I have the time and resource.

SOA Battle Day 2010 – The Carthaginians

So, having dealt with the Romans, it’s time to deal with Hannibal’s army at Carthage.

As with the Romans, the exact number of Hannibal’s troops at the battle is open to some speculation, but I’m pretty happy to go with the general consensus, which is 36,000 Infantry and 4,000 Cavalry – plus 80 war elephants. This is also the small matter of 4,000 Macedonians, if Livey is to be believed, but we will come back to that.

OK, let’s start with the easy stuff – the Cavalry. This was evenly divided into 2000 Carthaginian & Spanish Cavalry, and 2000 Numidians. This gives us the following:

• 4 Units Medium Cavalry – 4 x 9 = 36 figures (12 strips)
• 8 units of Light Cavalry – 8 x 6 = 48 figures (16 strips)

Onto the Infantry. Hannibal divided his army into 3 lines, each of roughly 12,000 troops.

The first line consisted of Balearic Slingers, Moorish Archers and Ligurian and Celtic Infantry. No exact numbers of each are given, so I’ll make a couple of ‘gaming’ assumptions. If we allocate 4 bases each of slingers and archers (about 1,200 men each), that leaves us with 9,600 Infantry. Divide that equally between the Ligurians and Celts gives us 4,800 each. Since both of these units are FL in Impetus terms, that gives us 6 units of each.

• 6 Units of Light Infantry – 6 x 27 = 162 figures (54 Strips)
• 6 Units of Celts – 6 x 27 = 162 figures (54 strips)
• 4 Units of Slingers – 4 x 12 = 48 figures (12 strips)
• 4 units of Archers – 4 x 12 = 48 figures (12 strips)

Onto the second line, which consisted of 12,000 Carthaginian Levy. They are described as ‘Heavy Infantry’, but I suspect the are actually more like FL in Impetus, as they were Levy, so I’m going to treat them as such (and use the Baccus Citizen Infantry from their Carthage range). This gives us a nice round number…

• 15 Units of Light Infantry – 15 x 36 = 540 figures (135 strips)

Finally, there is the third line, which consists of 12,000 of Hannibal’s veterans. These were a mix of Brutians, Africans, Spanish etc, but all heavies. Again, the maths is easy

• 10 Units of Heavy Infantry – 10 x 48 = 480 figures (120 strips)

At this point we may also want to consider the Macedonians – if we wanted to use them, they would equate to roughly 3 units of Heavy Infantry…

• 3 units of Heavy Infantry – 3 x 48 = 144 figures (36 strips)

And finally we have the elephants. There seems to be no basing conventions for these, so it’s really a ‘look and feel’ issue. 80 elephants should look impressive, but not be overpowering. so, 4 units? Maybe 6? I think 6 units, spread across the front of the army, would look better…

• 6 units of elephants – 6 x 3 = 18 figures

OK, if I thought that the Roman Army was big, this is HUGE. 48 Units of Infantry, 12 Units of Cavalry and 6 units of elephants, which equates to roughly 1,584 infantry, 84 cavalry and 18 elephants.

Time to go away and have a think about this…

SOA Battle Day 2010 – The Roman Forces

So, time to think about how many figures I need for this game of Zama for next year.

This may seem strange, but since I’m recently new to massed battle games (being a skirmish game junkie) I’ve never actually put an army together before based on the historical forces – it’s all a but of a new experience.

First things first – basing conventions.

I’m using the Impetus rules, plus 6mm figures (Baccus) and so I will be using the ’standard’ Polemos 60mm x 30mm basing, which seems to work well for Impetus.

In order to differentiate troop types, I’ve come up with the following convention when it comes to the amount of troops that I put on a base:

• FP (Heavy Infantry) – 4 ranks (usually 12 strips of 6mm figures – 48 troops)
• FL (Mediuym/Light Infantry) – 3 Ranks (Usually 9 strips of 6mm figures – 36 troops)
• S (Skirmishers) – Randomly placed troops on the base  (Usually 12 troops)
• CM (Medium Cavalry) – 1 Rank, 9 figures in line.
• CL (Light Cavalry) – Randomly placed, 6 figures.

But what does a base represent in Impetus? Well, according to the rules…

• Heavy Infantry – 1 base = 600 – 1200 men
• Light Infantry or Medium/Heavy Cavalry – 1 base = 400 – 800 men
• Skirmishers or Light Cavalry – 1 base = 200 – 300 men

So, now that’s sorted out my basing convention and approximate figure ratios, how many figures do I actually need?

Making life easy for myself, I’ll start with the Romans.

According to most sources, the Romans had approximately 24,000 infantry at Zama, plus 1,500 Cavalry. They were complemented by an allied force of 10,000 Numidians (6,000 Infantry and 4,000 Cavalry)

Taking the Roman contingent – according to the Impetus army list, a Republican Roman legion consists of 1 unit each of Velites, Hastati, Princeps and Triarii, or 3 x FP + 1 x S = approx.  3,900 men…except that wasn’t a Republican legion supposed to number about 5,000?

A (very) rough piece of arthimetic means that, allowing for a little margin of error, the Roman Infantry contingent consists of 6 Impetus ‘Legions’.

However, this doesn’t take into account the fact that Triarii units were smaller that the Princeps & Hastati, so maybe I should up the count to 7 ‘Legions’ instead? And for that matter, were all the Roman troops in legions, or did they have accompanying Italian allies, for example? Just how many Legions were with Scipio at Zama?

I’m not sure, and I think I should remember throughout this project to ‘keep it simple’.

So, 6 legions of Roman infantry it is.

The Cavalry, by comparison, is relatively easy. 1,500 Italian Cavalry can be represented by 3 units of Medium Cavalry (1 base = 500 men)

Now, Baccuas do not produce seperate figures for Hastati or Princeps, so they can be bought together.

• 6 Units of Triarii = 6 x 48 = 288 figures (72 strips)
• 12 Units of Hastati/Princeps = 12 x 48 =  576 figures (144 strips)
• 6 Units of Velites = 6 x 12 = 72 figures (18 strips)
• 3 Units of Cavalry = 3 x 9 = 27 Figures (9 strips)

Onto the Numidian allies. Whilst the Cavalry don’t really cause an issue (though there are going to be a lot of them!) the only Numidian infantry in the Impetus army list are Skirmishers. However, I can’t believe that the Numidians fielded an army of 6,000 skirmishers, so I’m going to take some licence and treat 2/3 of this allied contigent as Light Infantry (FL) with the rest as Skirmishers.

This means that the Numidian Infantry can be represented 9 bases of Infantry – 6 Light Infanty and 3 Skirmishers.

As I said, the cavalry are much more straight forward. Assuming that Light Cavalry use a base size of 1 base = 250 men, this gives us 16 bases of Cavalry – certainly a rather large horde for one flank!

So, my Numidian allied contigent:

• 6 Units of Light Infanty -6 x 27 = 162 figures (54 strips)
• 3 Units of Skirmishers – 3 x 12 = 36 figures (9 strips)
• 16 units of Light Cavalry – 16 x 6 = 96 figures (32 strips)

So, that gives us a grand total of 52 bases for the Roman army, 33 of Infantry and 19 of Cavalry, with a total of 1134 Infantry figures and 123 Cavalry.

That’s quite a few, and I haven’t even started on the Cartheginians yet!

SOA Battle Day 2010 – Starting early

I’ve recently recorded an interview with Richard Lockwood of the Society of Ancients (soon to be heard on the podcast feed) and as part of that we chat about the SOA Battle Day.

Battle Day 2010, unusually, has already been decided upon – it will be the Battle of Zama in 202BC – the battle that saw the defeat of Hannibal by Scipio Africanus and the end of the 2nd Punic War.

I thought that I’d better get my research done early, so after scouring the internet, I also decided to by the book “Hannibal’s Last Battle“.

I’m hoping to use this book as a basis for building my force for the 2010 Battle Day.

And what will be my force?

Well, since it will be massed battle it will obviously be 6mm, and we will be using the Impetus Rules. However, rather than sticking to particular points limits, I’m going to use the historical sized forces, and split them according to the Impetus basing convention.

I’ve got several months before the armies need to be ready, so plenty of time to fail dismally!

SOA Battle Day

I attended the 6th Society of Ancients Battle day last Saturday, held once again at Sycamore Hall in Bletchley.

The aim of the day is to play out a particular chosen battle using many different rulesets, in order to access how each particular ruleset deals with the particular challenges of the battle, and also to examine several ‘what if’ scenarios.

This year, the battle in question was Callinicum, the final battle of the 30-year war between the Eastern Romans (early Byzantines) and the Sassanian Persians, which was fought in 531 AD.

The day started early (though thankfully, not as early as Salute a few weeks earlier) and by 7.30 Dave Luff and I were on our way down the M1.

Sycamore Hall is pretty easy to find, and is actually a nice venue, including both a bar and a kitchen. The main hall was vastly improved this year by the installation of new lighting, which meant that those games away from the window were no longer fought in an eerie twilight.

Andy and Peter soon arrived and we set the table up ready for battle. We were playing a large ‘Commands & Colors” game using a 6′ x 4′ board with 20mm plastic troops, based using the ’standard’ DBA basing format.

Other games present on the day included:

Armarti, with a very nice moulded terrain table.

Piquet – very different in that this game concentrated entirely on the Arab vs Arab cavalry battle, which occurred on the Roman right flank.

Warlord

DBMM

DBA

Field of Glory

…and one I’m not sure about – the board is divided into squares, but much more than that I couldn’t tell you!

We managed to play the scenario three times throughout the day. Much debate had been had over the previous days about introducing special rules to reflect certain aspects of the battle, but in the end, we opted to play the ‘Standard’ C&C:A rules, but using the optional rules for 4 players – which meant that each side had a general and a lesser commander.  The General distributed the Command Cards and commanded the centre section troops, whilst the lesser commander ordered both flanks. Discussion between commanders was only allowed before play, and when a command card was played that affected the entire army.

The final deployment for the battle had a Roman army of 16 units facing a Persian army of 13 units. The Roman army was a mix of cavalry and infantry, whilst the Persians comprised entirely of cavalry. The Romans had 6 command cards, the Persian 8, and the game was played with a victory point total of 7.

The first game was a route for the Persians (played by Dave and I) – winning 7-2.

This game also included one of the most notable events of the day, when the Persian general launched a counter attack with his heavy cavalry in response to a Roman cavalry advance in the centre.

The Roman cavalry was rooted to the spot by the onrushing Persians, forgot to evade their heavy counterparts and were completely crushed. With the Roman centre and right flank in full retreat, the battle was the Persians. This action went on to win me the “Persian General of the Day” award – a very nice surprise!

The second battle was a much more closely fought affair – the Romans (green bases) fought bravely, but their forces on the right were eventually overwhelmed by the Arabs…at which point we discovered that the Persians had won the game – a bit of an anti-climax actually, as it was discovered that the Persians (Andy and Peter) had forgotten to collect their victory tokens for defeated units and all of a sudden it was “hang on, how many units have you got left?” Persians 7, Romans 5

Dave and I once again commanded the Persians in the last battle of the day – a ’speed’ game which resulted in a massed cavalry melee in the centre of the table. This really became a bit of a crap shoot, and the Romans won the day as they were simply able to roll more ‘banner’ symbols against surrounded Persian Cavalry. Killing the Persian general also helped! Final score, 7-4 to the Romans

5pm soon rolled around and the day ended. The Persians, as expected, won almost all the battles fought on the day. It was interesting to see again how different groups interpreted the battle.

I think the biggest surprise was just how well Commands & Colors operated – the battle was fought along pretty historical lines without having to introduce lots of special rules to artificially handicap the Romans.

Overall, a really good day – and I’m looking forward already to next year – it is rumoured to be Zama, so we will be planning an epic scale C&C game, plus a 6mm Impetus game. Battleground Historical Warfare should also be out, and Zama is a scenario in the book. However, I don’t think we will quite get the support from the club to run three different games on the day.

Full details of the day can be found on the Society of Ancients website

Projects – 6mm Ancients

Status – On Hold

As you know by now, I get distracted easily…

Just before I bought Uncharted Seas, back in September last year I’d started painting a 6mm Roman Army for use with the Impetus rules. I’d undercoated enough figures for 2 stands – 24 strips, which is 96 figures, and these are currently sat in my painting box, half painted.

These are part of a larger project to paint up several 6mm Ancients arimes for use with the Impetus rules. At present, I own Marian Roman and Parthian armies (enough figures for 500 point armies), but I’m looking to expand this with an army of Gauls and further armies from other periods.

I know, I need to knuckle down and actually get these painted, but the mind keeps ticking over…

Outlook – Once I’ve finished the Command Horizon painting, I want to look at getting the Romans finished asap, and concentrate on painting more Ancient armies, as I want to play much more Impetus in the second half of this year.

SOA Battle Day this Saturday

Saturday 25th April sees the 6th Annual Society of Ancients Battle Day, held at Sycamore Hall in Bletchley.

If you remember, this was the event that I was frantically painting Battlelore figures for last year.

This year the theme of the day is the battle of Callinicum, 531 AD – an encounter between the Eastern Romans (Early Byzantines) and the Sassanid Persians.

I will be there with some other guys from Scimitar, once again championing Command & Colors: Ancients with miniatures – come and say ‘Hi’ if you are there…

Days when you hate wargaming

Do you find that there are days when you can really hate this hobby?

For example, I am currently refighting the battle of Asculum using Commands & Colors: Ancients, and the VASSAL online module. The latest turn came through this morning, and I could finally execute the charge that I had been planning for the last few turns.

As you can see, 3 units of my Epirote Heavy Infantry, 2 commanded by Generals, charge into a line of 2 units of Roman Medium Infantry, 1 commanded by a General.

The score is 5-4 in victory banners to me – I need to destroy 1 unit for victory…and I’m attacking with a 50% chance of causing damage.

An easy win…

…Or maybe not. This is the result of the engagement:

So, I rolled a total of 15 dice – all hitting at 50%. The result? 4 hits. I even had 10 dice to roll to cause 3 hits on a single unit…I could only manage a miserable 2.

But, to make matters worse, my opponents rolls were just the opposite. He rolled 12 dice (again, hitting on a 50% chance) and scored 8 hits.

The final result? I am now laid open to another round of combat, my opponent strikes first.

Funnily enough, I lost the game in the next turn.

I know that dice are used to represent the fact that nothing is ever certain, and this game, would it be written up as prose, would talk about an heroic defense by Roman Legionaries…

…but as someone to whom poor dice throwing seems to be a way of life, this was still a cruel, cruel blow.

Today, I hate wargaming…